Pesticides

Topic summary contributed by volunteer(s): Randy

Eight-hundred-million pounds of pesticides are used annually in the United States. Human exposure to pesticides may occur by accident. For example, a 1969 dioxin outbreak resulted from a pipe mix-up at a plant that was producing both pesticides and animal feed. People can also be exposed to pesticides via residues on plant food sources: bamboo shoots imported from China had pesticide contamination levels that were over a suggested safety limit. GMO soybeans have significantly higher pesticide residues than organic or conventional non-GMO soy. Also, some plants may contain fecal viruses due to manure contamination of the water used to spray pesticides on crops.

Most American women have pesticides and other toxins in their bloodstream. Thus is not surprising since even the U.S. Inspector General found that the USDA was not providing adequate protection from pesticide exposure. Luckily, not all pesticides may be connected to health concerns. For example, the Bt toxin produced by the GMO crop known as Bt corn is a pesticide considered so nontoxic that it is sprayed on organic fruits and vegetables. In other cases, we don’t have enough research to definitively know. The pesticide Roundup has been found to be 100 times more toxic than its active ingredient, glyphosate. Still, due to the lack of truly informative human studies, it is unknown to what degree application of Roundup on is harmful to human health, and we have to be aware of conflicts of interest when reading scientific studies.